Apr. 16, 2014

Written by

@dracioppi

TRENTON — The first 360 pages that cleared Gov. Chris Christie of any wrongdoing in the two scandals dogging his second term agenda and presidential ambitions portray the governor as the victim of a pair of rogue top officials overcome with emotion and crazy ideas.

An additional 437 pages released Monday provides the source material for those characterizations of the officials, Bridget Anne Kelly and David Wildstein, gleaned from interviews with 75 individuals, including three with the governor himself.

But the release of the material further bolsters the argument that the report, commissioned by Christie, is a taxpayer-funded whitewash, according to the two top Democrats leading an investigation into the September lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and the attorney for Kelly.

One of the attorneys who interviewed Christie was Debra Wong Yang, a former U.S. Attorney and close friend who Christie once vacationed with at a wild game ranch in Texas. And the raft of memoranda released by Gibson Dunn, the firm hired by Christie to conduct an internal investigation into the lane closures and allegations of holding superstorm Sandy aid money hostage, relies heavily on those interviews, not documents, to reach its conclusion that Christie knew nothing of the lane closures beforehand, said Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who co-chairs the Select Committee on Investigation.

The report, he said, “offers hypothesis without documentation.”

The interviews thread the narrative that Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, and Wildstein, the former director of interstate projects at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operated outside of their duties and without Christie’s knowledge.

In an interview with Matt Mowers, who worked in Christie’s office and on his re-election campaign, Kelly is portrayed as inexperienced and regularly seeking approval. She is particularly concerned about the opinion of Bill Stepien, one of Christie’s former top advisers who had knowledge of the lane closures and, according to the March 27 report, had a brief relationship with Kelly.

“Kelly often tried to emulate Stepien, but even though she rose up through the IGA ranks quickly, she did not have the same background and understanding of government and how it operated as others in the office did, such as Stepien,” according to the documents, using the acornym for the governor’s office of intergovernmental affairs. Mowers went on to say he believed Kelly had an “authority complex.”

Kelly’s attorney, Michael Critchley, pointed to Kelly’s career in politics since graduating college in 1994 and her ascendence in the governor’s office as proof of her political acumen.

“Where is there any objective support for any of these allegations?” Critchley said.

According to Christina Renna, the former director of intergovernmental affairs, Kelly directed Renna in December to delete an email with the mayor of Fort Lee about traffic at the bridge there. The lane closures are believed to be retaliation for the mayor not endorsing Christie for re-election.

Nicole Crifo, another Christie official interviewed, said that Kelly was “habitually concerned about how she was perceived by the governor.”

Wildstein was also sensitive of his image to the governor and eager to please others in top positions, but couldn’t quite fit in, according to the documents.

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According to interviews with Christie’s top spokesman, Michael Drewniak, Wildstein “would often stop by Drewniak’s office to say hello. Drewniak and Wildstein used to be friends and Wildstein would reach out to Drewniak fairly regularly, although Drewniak was usually too busy with work to talk for an extended period of time.”

Wilstein’s attorney, Alan Zegas, could not be reached for comment.

The governor has gone to great lengths to distance himself from Wildstein amid reports that the two were friends since they grew up in the same town and their political circles mixed. In interviews, Christie called Wildstein an “odd duck,” and to show his lack of connection Wildstein, told investigators that Wildstein “is not a contact in his cell phone.”

Christie’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Wildstein is alleged in the report to be the mastermind of the lane closures. Even after he resigned from his post and the controversy swelled in the media, Wildstein continued to contact people within the governor’s office, sending Drewniak an email with a subject line “Serbian,” a term used in previously released documents to refer to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who is of Croatin descent.

“Did you see that bastard [Sokolich] hamming it up on Wolf Blitzer?” Wildstein wrote, according to the documents.

The newly released documents show Christie pained by the decisions of his staff. When he read news coverage on his iPad, he felt “sick to his stomach.” When he was told there was a “hum” that Kelly was involved in emails linked to the bridge shutdown, Christie “appeared visibly upset upon hearing this.”

On Dec. 13, the day deputy executive director Bill Baroni resigned, Christie held a meeting with senior staff. He walked into the room and slammed the door, telling the staff, “this is a mess, and now I have to clean it up,” according to the documents. He congratulated his team on helping him earn a large victory margin for re-election as well as the cover of Time magazine, but said it was time to get back to work. He also warned, presciently, that “the spotlight can turn to a searchlight real quick.”

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It has. Christie’s approval ratings slid markedly after emails were revealed in January showing that high-ranking officials in his administration and the Port Authority had knowledge or direct involvement in the lane closures, and the media coverage of Christie has been exhaustive and often critical of the governor. Also, a joint legislative panel was formed to investigate the closures, and the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey, where Christie worked before he was governor, has opened an inquiry.

That inquiry reportedly also focuses on allegations by Dawn Zimmer, the mayor of Hoboken, that the Christie administration held superstorm Sandy recovery money hostage in return for support of a development project by the Rockefeller Group, which had been represented by the law firm of Christie ally and former Port Authority Chairman David Samson.

In the Gibson Dunn memoranda, Christie says he had no recollection of Zimmer’s “position adverse” to the Rockefeller Group project, nor did he have “specific recollection” of meetings with Rockefeller Group executive or lobbyists. Zimmer has alleged that Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno threatened to withhold Sandy aid if she did not support the project. Guadagno has denied the allegations.

But Christie’s memory is sharp in other areas.

Christie told investigators he does remember that at a 2013 retreat he sang a song with Guadagno and, while running into the kitchen for a snack of raspberries, bumping into Guadagno and saying hello.

Wisniewski said Christie’s memory is “kind of odd,” and that the new documents bolster the view that the investigation was one-sided.

“You cannot equally satisfy your role as an investigator to what happened if at the same time you’re a defender,” said Wisniewski, D-Middlesex.

Wisniewski’s co-chair, Bergen County Democrat Loretta Weinberg, said she has not fully combed through the documents, but at first glance it appears to be “the background for the whitewash.”

The Gibson Dunn report was estimated to have cost upwards of $1 million, funded by taxpayers. On Monday, The Record reported that New Jersey’s attorney general has hired five law firms to represent “public employees in legal matters related to the George Washington Bridge lane closures,” and that the state would reimburse the lawyers at a rate of $340 an hour.